


On the Mend

by Anonymississippi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cat Grant and journalism, Family Relationships - Freeform, Kara spilling her secret (again), Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cat Grant is the Queen of All Media. Her reputation is intergalactic, it would seem, given that an alien General is currently sitting on her office couch, watching Supergirl kick butt on the monitors behind Cat's desk.</p><p>What does Astra want, and where in the world is Kara?</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Mend

**Author's Note:**

> I'm an awful fic author for not finishing one of my WIPs when I found the time this weekend, but I need more of Laura Benanti on my television screen. Hence this hot mess. Enjoy!

Another day, another crisis averted… smoothed over, recorded and reported and then packaged and sold via digital copy to the masses—and hardcopy to nearly 500,000 subscribers—all because of Cat’s diligence and marketing prowess.

Sometimes, hell, _all_ the time, it was good to be the boss.

Cat sat in her office with a magnifying loupe and a contact sheet from her field reporters in Munich; each photograph was testament to the rapidly shrinking spaces left available to house the thousands of Middle Eastern refugees. Europe’s open-borders benevolence, while touching and inspiring from a humanitarian perspective, could at any point devolve into a logistical nightmare.

She flashed back to a decade previous, when the displaced of NOLA were shepherded and packed into the Superdome like cattle in a chute, bumping into, stepping over, trampling atop each other. Cat had been there first-hand for that report. The _Times Picayune_ had garnered a Pulitzer for their coverage, as Cat had known they would, walking into that football stadium, seeing the despair on those lost faces, sniffing the body odor and refuse, avoiding the vomited freeze-dried meals in her four-inch designer heels. She’d glued herself to the editor’s side for three days while the power was down, offering CatCo funds and equipment in their southeastern bureau so they could still get to press. Katrina, while devastating, shed a positive light on her company.

Because it was a good story.

Tragic, certainly, but tragedies have been revered as the pinnacles of narrative since the Greeks. Humans can’t get enough of tragedy.

And with the reporting from the _Times_ and _The Sun Herald_ , Cat just knew that from the tragedy she could mine stories of hope, the other intangible narrative humans can’t seem to get enough of. CatCo had purchased shares of both papers so that when the Pulitzers came in 2006, she’d been able to reap their rewards. She’d even poached Trymaine Lee for a story or twelve, gave him a byline and a column, before MSNBC swooped in and stole him out from under her nose.

You win some, you lose some, but you mainly conquer.

While New Orleans was an isolated incident in many regards, the management similarities to the Syrians were many; she made a mental note to contact the European office in London, maybe even requisition the jet for an intercontinental jaunt for the sake of having heels on the ground. This was a good story, especially during an election year. Hot button issues sold copies, and if she could provide an enlightening report as to how Europe was handling the influx of immigrants and refugees, the trickle-down effect could be illuminating for her Joe Blow readers here in National City. She didn’t really care what the readers decided, as long as they read. They could split themselves along partisan lines for all Cat cared, but she at least wanted her fellow citizens informed.

Informed by reading papers.

Her papers.

“Kiera, I need you to schedule a conference call with the German Chancellor’s office!” Cat hollered, attention focused on the negative proofs. “I believe Angela’s still responding to me, even after that comment I made about her bowl haircut.”

“I do not believe your ‘Kiera’ is here. Much of your office is preoccupied with these screens.”

Cat’s head snapped up to find a woman, familiar but not immediately recognizable, standing with rigid posture and a blank face right in front of her desk. Cat was astonished she’d not heard her come in.

“Who are you?” Cat began, and, just as the woman was about to speak: “Scratch that, I don’t care. I’m not taking meetings this afternoon. Show yourself out.”

“I wish to speak with you.”

“And I wish you would leave,” Cat continued. “But since I don’t build empires on wishing, I’ll be happy to force you. Kiera, call security!”

“I told you, the girl is not out there. Nor are many of those under your employ. They seem very fascinated by—those information relay devices you have behind you,” the woman explained, indicating the televisions behind Cat with the slightest bob of her head. “Supergirl is… captivating, for you humans.”

Humans.

 _Hmm_.

Cat looked up from her work to glare at the woman, cataloging her features and feeling that familiarity niggle at the back of her own brain. The stranger was a brunette, just above average height with a slim, athletic build. Her clothing was unremarkable, but not atrocious; she wore a white blouse and black slacks that screamed bargain brands, but her demeanor, countenance, and bearing suggested professionalism at odds with her raiment. Her torrent of wavy mahogany hair was clipped back inexpertly; Cat noted a white streak at her temple that seemed nothing more than tacky.

It was as if the woman were trying to blend into the background.

And yet…

“Us humans?” Cat questioned, fine-tuning her critical stare to give the woman a more detailed appraisal.

Cat placed her work aside and put both palms flat on the desk, pushing herself up to her full height, which, power posture and Manolo Blahniks aside, still put her several inches below eye level with the stranger. “All eyes on the livefeed of Supergirl, facing off with some acid-expectorating creature, and you’re not paying attention to any of it. Why?”

“I could ask you the same question,” the mysterious woman replied.

“Supergirl is mine,” Cat responded, her satisfaction elevating with the confused twitch of lips that cracked the woman’s stone expression. “I have faith that she’ll do her job,” Cat pressed. “And I can’t stop doing mine just to watch her.”

“She’s… yours?” the woman queried, a skeptical brow inching heavenward.

“I branded her. I marketed her. Instilled some reason into her sporadic heroism,” Cat explained, gesturing toward the screens while her mind whirred, her powers of recollection warping into hyperdrive to determine just where she’d seen this woman before. Cat stalled a bit further: “Readers are so lazy nowadays; they need the dots connected, something linear in the narrative. I put a cap on the randomness of her appearances.”

“So you truly are the woman who tells the humans what to think?”

“I, truly, have not heard that one before,” Cat continued, linking her own dots, remembering the hours of footage she’d seen on Supergirl; the buildings she saved, the people she rescued, the aliens she _fought_. “I’m Cat Grant. Some people, publications, news agencies, countries, refer to me as The Queen of All Media.”

“You are royalty?” the woman asked.

“In a way,” Cat answered, invested by the prospect of a scoop.

_Lois was going to tear her hair out._

Cat removed her glasses and bit at the end of one temple as she scooted out from behind the desk to face off with the office intruder. “And you, I know, are alien.”

The woman grinned and nodded, seemingly surprised by Cat’s deduction. “How astute.”

Cat returned the small smile, and gestured toward her couch for the woman to sit. She took the lounge chair opposite the coffee table, another power play that had the added benefit of putting her a few feet away from someone… thing… _being_ , able to snap her spine in half.

Though the woman—alien—didn’t seem particularly hostile. If she’d wanted to do Cat harm, she’d likely have done so already. No, the alien came to her office, made a point to clothe herself like a human, addressed her as the woman who “told humans what to think.”

The alien lady wanted something. And Cat had been dealing with people wanting things from her for decades.

Negotiations, whether human or alien, Cat could handle.

“So what is it you want from me?” Cat asked, crossing one knee over the other and settling into the lounge chair. She placed her chin in her hand and waited, watching with her eagle eye as the other woman sat ramrod straight on the sofa.

“You are very direct.”

“You don’t get where I am wasting time on pleasantries.”

“I know. It is not easy, a woman holding power. I am familiar with the frequent resistance to females in charge.”

“Care to elaborate?” Cat asked.

“I have command over a legion,” the woman explained. And though she didn’t show it, the admission gave Cat pause.

“My name is General Astra, first daughter of the House of In-Ze. The only remaining daughter... member, of my house.”

“You say that,” Cat challenged. “But more and more of you keep cropping up. Apparently, that one’s related to Lois’s pet.” Cat flicked her wrist at the monitors, which were flashing back and forth with shoddy camera work, trying to keep pace with Supergirl’s zigzagging through the sky. “I need to remember to fire the camera guy on Channel 4,” she mumbled to herself.

“Lois?” Astra tilted her head, confused. The action looked uncannily familiar.

“She’s not important,” Cat said (what she’d been screaming to the world for several years now). “But that boy-toy of hers in the cape, flying around Metropolis, he’s the one that’s got the connection to my girl.”

“Your girl,” Astra repeated, rolling the syllables over her hard-set mouth. “You know of her relation to Kal-El?” Astra asked, leaning forward slightly.

“Cousins, she told me,” Cat replied, making a mental note of the strange name. “But you must know her, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been hovering over my building, waiting to get the snot beat out of you. Your recovery seems to have gone over smoothly.”

“K—Supergirl is my niece,” Astra admitted, eyes bouncing back toward the televisions and then returning to Cat.

“Your brother must’ve been much older than you when he had her. You don’t look—then again, alien aging is rather beyond my field of expertise.”

“Not my brother. I am the last daughter of my house because Alura is Kar—Supergirl’s mother. My sister,” Astra clarified. “She is my twin, a rare occurrence on Krypton.” Cat watched Astra study the monitors, her tone saturated with a heavy nostalgia Cat recognized as loss. “Was,” Astra corrected herself. “But our planet burned, my sister along with it. I didn’t know my niece had been spared.”

“A family reunion!” Cat crowed, clapping her hands together and then leaning forward, propping her elbows on her knees.

The possible cover story—assuming she could get both participants to play civil—had the potential to break publication records. Forget one crime-fighting alien dude with a morality complex, she had an actual soap opera sitting on her office couch. Exploding planets. Long-lost mother issues. Dynastic houses and stilted speech that could tickle the fancy of snooty _Downton Abbey_ viewers.

“Does this mean I get to put a bid in to cover all the spats? Produce the reality show?" Cat chuckled. "If you two could keep from demolishing our buildings, that would be a plus."

“Destruction is not my end goal,” Astra returned sharply.

“Reassuring.”

“But I realize that I might have gone about speaking with my niece in an ineffective manner,” Astra pinched the bridge of her nose, a move Cat had done many a night in her early years with Carter.

“My previous attempts at negotiation resulted in my capture and torture, at the hands of your military,” Astra said.

Cat straightened at this, narrowing her eyes while Astra calmly sat, describing government secrets and Geneva Convention infractions as if she were recounting what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning. But this wasn’t Cat’s first rodeo: if the woman had dirt on the government, Cat would need some verification.

“Astra,” Cat began, standing, “Or General, if you prefer.”

“Astra will suffice. I am not your general… yet.”

“That sounds like a threat. It’s poor form to threaten the people you want something from, dear,” Cat didn’t turn her back on the woman as she moved.

“I—” Astra snapped, then sighed her resignation. “Apologize. Threatening you is not my intention.”

“Can I record this conversation?” Cat requested. “I’m not sure what journalism schools your people attend, but on Earth, we document our sources.”

“Of course,” Astra said, bowing her head as Cat shuffled through the papers on her desk, grabbing her phone.

“And before we really get into this, is there anyway you could prove to me that you’re… you know…” Cat fluttered her hand in the air. “Extra-terrestrial?”

“Pardon?”

“You know. A brief demonstration of your abilities, so I know I didn’t make a mistake. I can’t waste time on a nut job, so you need to prove to me that you’re the real deal.”

“I… see,” Astra answered, standing and smoothing the front of her slacks into place. “It seems I must—what is the phrase?—jump through hoops to be heard.”

“I tend to put the hoops up pretty high,” Cat bantered. “But if you can fly, you should have no trouble sailing through.”

Astra gave a disgusted eye roll, then completely disappeared from Cat’s view.

“Wait a—”

“Hello.”

Cat whipped around, gripping the edge of her desk for support. Astra stood two inches behind her, arms crossed over her chest, an incredulously bored expression plastered on her face. “Goodbye,” she said, and disappeared again.

When Cat pivoted around, Astra was sitting back on the couch, this time with a drink in hand; Cat turned to the bar to find one of her glasses missing, the door to her ice maker left carelessly open.

“I grew thirsty jumping through your hoops, Ms. Grant,” Astra said, raising her glass with a triumphant smirk. “Come now, fix yourself a beverage.”

“Super speed, flying, I think I saw light sabers sprouting from your pupils when your niece kicked your ass,” Cat listed the qualities, ignoring the slight; she was unhappy to be moved to the defensive. Cat pressed the record icon on her smartphone screen and walked towards her bar, shutting the door to the mini-freezer. “I’m assuming you two possess the same powers?”

“Yes, but that is not what I came to discuss,” Astra said, placing her glass down on the end table. “To be frank, Ms. Grant, I am disinclined to bring more destruction to this planet than has already occurred. But you humans are killing yourselves.”

“As we have been for many years, but go on.”

“My previous efforts for intervention were met with hostility by your military, as well as my niece,” Astra said. “I… want to rebuild the relationship I have with her. She is the only family I have left, and, most unfortunately, has sided with you humans against my advice. However, my troops are less inclined to settle the matter with diplomacy. They want to take National City by force, come out of hiding, and I fear a mutiny that I will not be able to suppress. They will do harm to my niece, because she will oppose them in her desire to protect you.”

“Me?” Cat pointed to herself, a disconcerting swooping sensation settling low in her gut.

“I was speaking collectively, of your species.”

“And you decided to come to me with this information because—?”

“You tell the humans what to do. What to wear, what to eat, what to buy, how to live.” Astra pointed at the television screens, then picked up one of the Catco magazines and flipped the pages. “You have more influence than many armies combined, and with your help, we can contain any further bloodshed. Yours is peaceful propaganda; we could integrate with your society, make several alterations to living that would be beneficial for all.”

“What is it you would have me do?” Cat asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the counter of the wet bar.

“What you always do: I want you to tell my story,” Astra answered, unwavering. “If we can get the humans to change their behaviors of their own volition, then my army will have no reason to overthrow the city. I will submit to being your… your girl, or your woman, or whatever it is you call Kar... Supergirl. You will garner the attention of your followers and have another prize in your corner, an alien to draw interest. But these attitudes _must_ change, or there will be war, Ms. Grant.”

“It’s not quite an ultimatum, but you should know I don’t like anyone forcing my hand,” Cat returned. “I’m not a soldier. I’m a reporter. I don’t fight battles, I relay the play-by-play.”

“But you influence, which is just as good as giving orders,” Astra argued, leaning forward in her fervor. “People will fall in line.”

“You hope,” Cat corrected. “And even if I agree to run a story this outlandish, who am I to know how people will react? I can’t predict behavior, though I try to predict consumption patterns. You might want a marketing analyst for this.”

“A what?”

“Listen, just what is this crusade you’re on, anyway? What’s the bottom line? What is it that you’re fighting for?”

“I’m fighting to save this planet!” Astra stood, placing her hands on her hips. “Your habits are _killing_ it, exactly like my home planet.”

“Wait a second,” Cat said, raising a hand and blinking away her derision. “You mean to tell me you aliens are just a bunch of tree-huggers?”

“I don’t understand the question,” Astra answered, seeming genuinely confused.

“Your big platform is that we’re killing the planet? You have troops that will revolt if you don’t ensure greener practices in the population?” Cat questioned skeptically. “Eco-terrorism seems rather superficial; now, say you’re orchestrating a coup in a major city. As General, who would be left in charge once our government surrendered?”

“There is more nuance to the issue,” Astra huffed irritably. “It may have been my intention, originally, to… revise the leadership—”

“Subjugate an entire planet?”

“I’ve seen the error of my ways,” Astra admitted, not making eye contact with Cat.

She slinked toward the blown-up cover on the easel, that first exposé with Supergirl. Astra’s voice softened instantly.

“My priorities have changed,” she said, reaching out to touch the photo, but stopping just short of the frame. Cat watched her shake her shoulders, redirecting her attention. “But do you not believe it is a just cause?”

“I’m saying that you’re not the first person—alien, whatever, that’s taken up this mantle, General. You say the government has tortured you; I can exploit that detail,” Cat settled back into her chair, brainstorming headlines despite lacking major portions of the story’s trajectory. “Your motivations seem exceedingly shallow given that you’ve threatened to over run a city, but, I suppose I can work with this,” she waved her hand in a vague gesture over Astra’s body.

Cat then picked up a pen and notepad she had placed on the coffee table. She plunked her glasses back on her nose and started making notes, her practiced shorthand scrawled quickly over the thin blue lines of the pages.

“We’ll have to revamp your look, if you want to register as sympathetic. A fine line, because you’ll still want to retain the authority of your General persona. I’m assuming these aren’t your normal clothes?”

“No, but what do my clothes have to do with my story?” Astra asked, perplexed.

“Welcome to Earth, dear,” Cat said, smirking. “And we’ll get rid of that wannabe Stacy London streak; schedule a shoot with James. I’ll write the piece, but it will take time. I want to go back to the torture bit—I don’t mean to make light of what happened to you, but secret agencies water boarding aliens will only build sympathy for you in the public eye. You want them to change their behavior? You have to make them like you first.”

“You said this will take time. How long?”

“I don’t have an answer for you, there," Cat shrugged. "It can take decades to turn the tides of public opinion, no matter what the press emphasizes.”

“It needs to be done as quickly as possible,” Astra said urgently, picking up on Cat’s acquiescence. “Earth faces a threat that could dislodge the planet from its axis if things don’t change.”

“I assume you’re not being hyperbolic, here?”

“As I said, there is more nuance to the situation than living ‘greener’, as you put it. Something is growing,” Astra began to pace, slowly, brushing the fur of Cat's rug with the tips of her toes. In her concentration, Cat wondered if the woman recognized she was floating. “I cannot believe it qualifies as terrorism to wish to save the planet my only blood has adopted as her own. I will not see another people annihilated.”

“Then we’ll arrange a sit-down for a proper interview, so you can start at the beginning, and we can work through your whole spiel,” Cat agreed, the woman’s intensity growing tiresome. “I can’t do this now, but I will get it done. I’ll have my assistant take down your contact information, so we can schedule a meeting when I have more time for this. Kiera!!!”

There was a noticeable lack of shuffling from outside.

“KIERA!!!”

“I can just leave some information myself,” Astra offered, stalking quickly toward Cat. “You don’t have to—”

“Yes, Ms. Grant?” Kara came barreling through the glass door of the office, glasses askew, some strange stain clinging and— _sizzling?_ —the hem of her wool-blend sweater.

“Please take down Astra’s contact information,” Cat instructed, uninterested in whatever muck Kara had wallowed in during her lunch hour. “Clear a spot in my schedule for Wednesday eve—what on earth is wrong with you?!”

Kara had dropped her tablet and shot across the room to stand in front of Cat. The girl was crouched slightly, slack-jawed and visibly shaking, staring at Astra as if she would see her ground into desert dust.

“What is… h-how—why is sh-she _here_?” Kara stuttered quietly.

Astra took a careful step back from Cat and raised her hands in a passive gesture, all the while eyeing Kara like a cornered wild beast.

Kara, her fluttering little Labrador of an assistant.

“I would say because security wasn’t doing their jobs, but given her abilities, I don’t know if I have reasonable grounds to give anyone the heave-ho,” Cat answered, turning to the bar to doctor herself a cocktail. “And for God’s sake, stop standing there like an in articulate lump. Get her contact information and clear a slot for an interview Wednesday night. Do I have anything down for six?”

Astra lowered her hands. “Kara, please—”

“No,” Kara grit, clenching her jaw so tightly Cat wondered if the girl had any concern for her molars.

“Kiera,” Cat began, properly absorbing her assistant’s reaction. “You’re shaking.”

“You can’t _be_ here, okay?” Kara said, striding over toward Astra with a menacing aggression Cat had never, in all Kara’s time at the office, ever seen. “She—there’s—she wasn’t supposed to take meetings today, okay? She… and… oh my God, there was an alien in midtown, you—you knew I would—you knew the office would be watching Supergirl!”

“I needed to see Ms. Grant,” Astra explained. “I knew you—I knew her aide would be screening her meetings.”

“You orchestrated a diversion?” Cat asked Astra, her nose twitching at the tactic. “Brilliant strategy, General,” Cat toasted her with a soothing bourbon.

“You can’t be serious,” Kara turned her attention back to Cat, a confused expression of betrayal marring her usually bright features. “You… Cat, you can’t _toast_ a military leader who deliberately set a menace onto the city streets!”

Kara slapped a hand over her mouth and Astra cast questioning looks between the two, knees bent as if prepared to jet away in an instant.

Cat almost choked on her swallow of bourbon, her eyes bugging and blinking at the sheer audacity of her assistant. She jostled her head to right her mind, then dabbed slowly at the corner of her lips with a monogrammed cloth napkin.

“First of all, _Kiera_ ,” Cat said, setting her glass aside. “I can do whatever I damn well please. It’s not as if anyone was harmed; she and I both knew that Supergirl would be there to run interference. Conflict is, after all, at the heart of every great story.”

“You can’t possibly—”

“Kiera!” Cat snapped. “Your attitude toward an invaluable source is worthy of a professional reprimand in your file. Desist.”

“Source?!” Kara exclaimed, shuffling frantically across the room to situate herself closer to Cat, eyes never leaving a quietly attentive Astra. “Ms. Grant, you don’t understand. She—”

“Didn’t sign in with you first. Big whoop,” Cat cut her off, holding a pointer finger aloft. “Secondly, remember what I said about getting angry at work. This is not the place.”

“But—”

“Pencil. Her. In. And for the love of respectability, clean yourself up. That stain is spreading up your side like a fungus,” Cat turned on her heel, ready to resume her study of the smattering of proofs from Munich. She floated into the rotating office chair and disregarded the two women, engaging in some sort of tense standoff in her office. “Chop chop,” Cat snapped her fingers.

Kara whipped around into the slightest crouch, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.

“This way,” Kara seethed.

“Thank you for speaking with me, Ms. Grant,” Astra said. “With your help I believe all can be resolved… peacefully.” Cat dismissed them both with a nod of her head.

“I can’t believe you would do this,” Cat heard Kara mutter at the door. “She’s my _boss_ , okay? She’s mine—”

The pair passed through the glass doors, leaving Cat to ruminate over an exceptionally interesting interaction between her assistant and an alien informant. Certain outstanding snippets of the exchange included Kara placing herself between Cat and Astra, prepared to physically beat the woman back if she dared make a move. Couple that with Astra’s sudden paralysis, Kara’s rage, and the general’s correct pronunciation of her assistant’s name...

Cat no longer doubted her suspicions. She had enough puzzle pieces to see the large, dangerous, rapidly clearing picture.

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Cat heard a knock on her door.

“Ms. Grant? I’ve gotten the meeting set with General Astra,” Kara said.

“Thank you, Kiera. Now that wasn’t too much to ask, was it?” Cat trilled.

“No ‘mam,” Kara said. “Though she does need to leave now.”

“Then let her go.”

“She’d like to use the balcony. Apparently she had an issue with… tight spaces.”

“Aliens don’t have elevators?”

“It would appear so, Ms. Grant,” Kara answered.

Cat just waved her hand at the window, feigning deep interest in the notes at her desk.

“Just to be sure I’ll… see her out,” Kara mumbled.

“Yes, please, give me the running commentary of your every action, since I obviously have nothing better to do,” Cat snipped, throwing her hands wide to indicate the stacks of files cluttering her desk.

Cat heard Kara sigh, then saw her assistant lead the General through the glass doors. Astra nodded once in her direction, but the look directed toward Cat was quite different from her schooled expression during their earlier meeting. Cat couldn’t place it. She’d been on the receiving end of a number of hateful glares in her time, but the calculating appraisal the alien shot her way seemed more intrigued this time around.

When the two passed over the threshold of the balcony, Cat leaped up, already having discarded her heels in order to move with some degree of stealth. She dashed over the carpet, hoping to muffle her tread as she stood at the wall’s edge, snooping on her source and her assistant’s conversation. She felt her heart rate quicken, mentally cursing the fact that she’d forgotten at least one (if not both) of the women on the balcony possessed a measure of super-hearing.

“I still say this was a cheap-shot,” Cat heard Kara mutter. “An intimidation tactic.”

“You don’t think I am sincere. I understand your hesitation, little one.”

“Don’t—”

“Things are different now, Kara,” Cat could hear the thick emotion in Astra’s voice, like mucus coating an esophagus after a good cry. “I can’t in good mind do anything that would bring you harm.”

Cat caught a glimpse of movement, Kara flinching from around the corner.

“What about your troops? How’s dear old Uncle Non’s jaw?”

“I’m trying to curb their aggression by shifting the arena of war. We will wage the battle with public opinion.”

“You could’ve gone to anyone,” Kara muttered. “Why her?”

“She is the best at what she does; our intelligence indicates that she has the furthest reach. It has nothing to do with you, Kara.”

“If it has anything to do with her, it has to do with me, too. Package deal.”

“She is hard on you because she cares for you,” Astra said.

“Don’t speak for her.”

“She called you hers. Claimed you. I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all; as she waxed poetic about ‘my girl’. As if she could ever fathom the power you possess.”

“She’s smarter than you know,” Kara argued.

“You give humans more credit than they deserve.”

“She’s been standing on the other side of the wall, listening to us, since we stepped out here,” Kara countered. “Or didn’t you notice the extra heartbeat?”

Cat gasped, letting her head thud back against the wall. Damn her suffering intellect for only being able to think about the proverbial cat being out of the bag.

“I’ve… yet to fully acclimate my powers, filtering through all this senseless noise,” Astra continued. “But recall that I am not the one who outed you. You did that yourself.”

“I thought you were going to hurt her,” Kara relented, the bitterness leaving her voice.

“As I said, everything I do now, I do to spare you pain, little one. Though you are not so little any longer.”

There was silence and the sound of bodies shifting. Even in her relentless investigative mode, Cat felt a twinge of guilt for infringing upon what was likely a private moment.

“I hope to see you again, soon,” Astra said. “Under better circumstances.”

“Where will you go?”

“I cannot answer that just yet,” Astra replied. “I am supposed to meet with your sister, soon.”

“You’re speaking with Alex?”

“I need someone who knows your military. Someone sensible enough to negotiate _before_ they shoot.”

“Are we still talking about my sister?”

Cat was relieved to hear the levity return to Kara’s tone.

“Yes,” Astra laughed, her sing-song chuckle underscored by Kara’s nervous giggle. “Goodbye, little one.”

“Bye, Aunt Astra.”

Cat heard a whooshing, which she took as her cue to return to her desk.

“Kiera!” she yelled, stabbing at the tiny red Xs to close all of the open windows on her computer screen.

“Yes, Ms. Grant?” a smiling Kara emerged from the balcony, looking as bubbly and cheerful as she ever had. Time for Cat to use that good mood to her advantage.

“Clear the afternoon and gather your things.”

“Ms. Grant?”

“You and I have some things to discuss,” Cat didn’t elaborate further.

“Ms. Grant, I’m sure that… there’s a perfectly good explanation for all of this.”

“Kiera, you know what I want.”

“Uh… answers?” Kara asked, quirking her head in that confused way that Astra had done barely half an hour ago.

Family resemblance.

_Cute._

“I was going to say a martini for starters. The answers will come with the vermouth,” Cat gathered up all her notes and shoved them into her bag, along with her phone, keys, and tablet.

“Yes, Ms. Grant,” Kara nodded, backpedaling for the office door.

“Kara?”

“Hmm?” Kara halted, her hand on the door handle.

Cat dallied, running a thumb along the edge of her desk. She didn’t like to fumble over her words, but she’d be lying if she said the afternoon’s surprise guest and ensuing revelations hadn’t frazzled her. She only hoped her nerves weren't glaringly apparent.

“I… never understood your situation. I said I would try to get to know you better, but I’ve done a poor job of it.”

“Ms. Grant, you don’t have to—”

“I’m not finished,” Cat interrupted. “Though I don’t know the history with you two, my gut tells me she’s not lying. And my gut is never wrong, clearly,” Cat indicated the pristine office, the monitors, the view over National City; reminding Kara what Cat Grant’s instincts could build.

“Kara, as a journalist, you learn quickly who you can and can’t trust. You learn to hone skills of suspicion, learn to analyze the motivations of the people willing to sell out their higher-ups, their politicians, their… families. In this case, I’d like to assure you that—well, I believe you are safe.”

Kara sucked her lips in and brought her hands before her abdomen, fidgeted with her fingers. “You’re safe too, Ms. Grant.”

“I’d not have gone into journalism if I was concerned with my safety,” Cat deflected, shouldering the straps of her bag. “But I can say, I’m pleased that you have your family back.”

Kara’s eyes crinkled behind the frames of her glasses, her smile overtaking her earlier hesitancy.

“I learned a long time ago that family isn’t just blood Ms—Cat,” Kara replied, unleashing that winsome grin that could hang moons and save planets and inspire populations.

“Good to know, Kara.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just really *really* REALLY would love for them to start a redemption arc for Astra at the end of this season and bring her on as a regular in Season 2. Can you imagine Kara and Alex teaching Laura Benanti (queen of comedic turns!) about human things?!?! And then Astra somehow meeting Cat (who doesn't take any bull from Astra, because she's a woman in charge, too) and becoming besties due to their ruthlessness?
> 
> The possibilities are endless. Would love any feedback you cared to provide!


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